It is the final day of the tennis event at the Olympic Games and with three gold medals and two more bronze medals to be decided it promises to be a fascinating and high quality day at the Olympic Park in Rio.
We have the men’s bronze medal match and the gold medal match but before that the women’s doubles gold will be decided as will the gold medal winners in the mixed doubles.
Saturday Recap
Hit and miss for us on Saturday. Kei Nishikori never showed up against Andy Murray but the Rafael Nadal vs Juan Martin del Potro match turned into an Olympic classic which went the full distance to limit any losses on the day.
Elsewhere history was made when Monica Puig won her the first ever Olympic gold medal for her country Puerto Rico when she saw off Angelique Kerber in three sets while Petra Kvitova sealed the bronze with a three set win of her own against Madison Keys.
Juan Martin del Potro vs Andy Murray
This was nearly the gold medal match in London four years ago but del Potro lost a marathon final set in the semi-final to Roger Federer but the Argentine has made no mistake this time around. Andy Murray is one win away from defending his Olympic title which five weeks after winning Wimbledon would be some achievement.
Nobody can deny del Potro a place in this final. He has seen off three of the top 17 players in the world en route to this final including two of the biggest names of all time in Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. His serve has been extremely good throughout the tournament and his forehand has resembled a cannon at times.
Andy Murray has shown two sides in this tournament. He was flawless in the opening two rounds against very modest opposition and then he had a couple of really tough battles before outclassing Kei Nishikori in the semi-final. One of the reasons Murray has got into trouble in this tournament has been how easy his serve has been to break.
I don’t think this will be as one-sided as the last Olympic final but I do expect the same man to win. Both these guys know how to battle though and they have both shown it this week. Murray will probably deal with del Potro’s serve better than anyone although it has to be said that Novak Djokovic couldn’t even work a break point chance against it earlier in the tournament. On the flip side of that del Potro will get plenty of looks on the Murray serve.
With that in mind I fancy there will be a couple of close sets or a couple of sets in which del Potro dominates which could take us the distance. However it plays out I’ve seen enough from the two men to think that we can sail over 36.5 games in this match.
Rafael Nadal vs Kei Nishikori
This is the match neither wanted to be in but one of them will go home with some hardware and the other empty handed from singles play and nobody wants to be the one finishing fourth so this should be quite competitive despite it not being the final.
I say should be quite competitive but there is no guarantee of that because Nadal hosts a huge head to head advantage over the Japanese star and in truth Nishikori rarely gets close to the Spaniard either.
One thing that might keep him closer here is the fact Rafael Nadal has played a lot of tennis this week but at no point against del Potro did Nadal look tired and if he has enough freshness about him I expect Nadal to win this quite comfortably to add singles bronze to his doubles gold.
Doubles
As I eluded to in yesterday’s preview I fancy the Russian pair of Elena Vesnina and Ekaterina Makarova to win the gold medal but the bookmakers see it the same way and have them odds on favourites. I’m not sure I’d want to be taking on the class of Martina Hingis at a skinny price though so I’ll leave that one.
I was hoping the mixed doubles might throw up but the two pairs I think will win are favourites to win. We’ve seen throughout the tournament both in men’s and women’s doubles as well as the mixed doubles that this isn’t the place for firing at favourites so I’ll sit the doubles out on the final day.
Tips
WON – Back J-M.del Potro vs A.Murray – Over 36.5 games for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Betfair
Back it here:
Back R.Nadal (-1.5 games) to beat K.Nishikori for a 5/10 stake at 1.80 with Betfred
Back him here:
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